Removing projections or imperfections from a wooden surface is a common task when working with wood. For instance, in assembling wooden boat decking, holes are drilled in the decking material to create wells which will accept wooden plugs. Decking screws are then typically counter-sunk at the bottom of such wells, and the wooden plugs are then driven into the wells, and glued in place, to seal the screws underneath from moisture and weather. The top ends of the wooden plugs, along with residual glue, projecting above the level of the top surface of the deck so constructed, remain to be removed after the plugs are driven into the wells. Removal of the ends of the plugs and residual glue as they project above the planks of the deck is necessary to achieve the smooth surface required for finished decking.
Other tasks when working with wood are difficult to achieve without special tools. One such task is the creation of a custom piece, such a wooden threshold. When such a piece must be wider than standard sizes, shaping a threshold to fit a required shape using hand or power tools found in most woodworking shops is difficult and time consuming, and the resulting custom piece often uneven and unacceptable. Other tasks easily accomplished using the present invention include removing excess dried glue at the joinder of two pieces of wood, and planing a surface to smooth it where the wood grain has been raised by water or weathering.
Currently there is no simple tool or process to perform some of these woodworking tasks. Where a tool is available to perform some part of these tasks, the tool often is not suitable to complete the entire task, or it is expensive, or using the tool is time consuming or difficult. Wood workers have therefore found it necessary to use a variety of tools, or apply exceptional skill, to accomplish even simple tasks. To take only one example, boat makers fabricating wooden boat decks have up until now sawed off the tops plugs inserted in decks by hand, or chiseled them off, a laborious and time consuming job, and then planed or sanded the surface of the deck to achieve a smooth surface. Even when such methods are used, however, these tools are not optimal to achieve a smooth surface, as a saw, chisel, or plane may each mar the surface of the deck, or take too much of the plug as it splits with its grain. Using both a saw or chisel in conjunction with a plane or sand paper also requires time for each operation or application of a tool, thereby increasing labor costs. To take another example, contractors and wood workers often must fabricate custom pieces to fit a job requiring cutting for unusual dimensions using standard-sized wood stock, or fabricate suitable pieces from combinations of pre-existing standard-sized wood stock, or order a custom piece. As a result, either much time is spent custom fabricating such pieces (if the pieces may be fabricated at all in this way), or the cost of an installation is large, when projects involve unusual dimensions are encountered (such as thresholds).
Apparatus and methods for working a wooden surface, including saws, routers, planes, and similar tools, are common in the related art. Routers, for instance, are used to remove material from surfaces for decorative and functional purposes. Routers typically have a base, and a motor disposed in a housing. The motor drives a rotatable shaft which extends downward beyond the lower end of the housing and base when the router is sitting flat on a surface, with the shaft adapted to secure a router bit thereto. The router bit extends through a central opening in the base to cut a workpiece. Existing routers, because of their relatively small size and rotary cutting action, come perhaps closest to providing the kind of facility and flexibility necessary to overcome the difficulties set forth above. However, existing routers, because of the way the router bit is oriented toward the workpiece, are not set up for, or adaptable to, removal of irregularities in a wooden surface, or cutting portions of a larger piece to modify its shape to create a threshold, or other custom piece.
Existing standard routers use a cast base, typically formed of aluminum and having one side, the underside or bottom side, machined to create a planer guide face through which the shaft and bit protrude. When cutting (the edge of) a workpiece, a user slides the bottom of the router base across the workpiece along its edge. Generally, a second guide, often a bearing attached to the end of the bit, but sometimes some other form of “edgeguide” which may be clamped to the workpiece, is used to assure a smooth cut along the edge of the workpiece. The cutting bit of a router has a shank which is held in place on the shaft by appropriate holding mechanism, including an adjustable, generally hexagonal, set screw. In some routers, the cutting bit may be moved in small increments parallel to the motor shaft, toward or away from the motor, by a fine adjustment mechanism. However, standard routers are all designed so the bit extends below the router base, as standard routers are all designed to smooth edges or drill holes in the workpiece. Standard routers may have “sub-bases,” “spacing blocks,” or “sub-base plates,” which may be attached to the underside surface of a router base to facilitate specific router applications, none of which accomplish the functions of the present invention so far as this inventor is aware.
Other routers are “offset.” That is, the axis of rotation of the motor and attached shaft is parallel to, but displaced from, the axis of rotation of the collet and shaft which supports the router bit or cutting head. In offset routers, the router bit generally extends through an opening in the router base which is offset from the axis of the motor and shaft. Such a configuration allows a user to view the bit, and the area of the workpiece around the bit, as the user operates the router. This ability to view the cutting bit, available only when the cutting bit is offset (or placed before or in front of the router), is important for the present invention, as only by placing the cutter in front of the router can a user in the present invention flush cut to the same surface upon which the router is sitting. As more fully explained below, the ability to view the cutting operation, when incorporated into the present invention, allows a user to mill uneven surfaces in front of the router, in the path of the router. Using the present invention, the same surface upon which the router sub-base sits acts as a guide as the cutting bit approaches and then cuts through an irregularity on that surface.
No apparatus or method for working a wooden surface in the related art of which the inventor is aware, including all routers known in the related art, specifically address the difficulty and uneven results inherent in smoothing a wooden surface having a projecting plug or other irregularity, and no apparatus or method allows a user to form a custom threshold or door jam, or other similar custom piece using only a simple, commonly found, powered hand tool and at least one flat surface as a guide. In attempting to achieve smooth surfaces in wood, and form custom pieces, others have created various cutting, smoothing, planing, and forming apparatus, and methods associated therewith. Such apparatus and methods within the related art include:
U.S. Pat. No. 1,574,740 to Raynor, which discloses a cutting device for smoothing a surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,132,254 to Shockovsky, which discloses portable planing machine, with runners as guides, for use with a power cutter.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,324,514 to Craven, which discloses an apparatus for guiding a small router head, for cutting sheet metal printing plates to desired outlines.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,529,343 to Adams, which discloses an apparatus for making a custom edge using a router and guide.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,551,047 to Price, which discloses a router having a rotatable cutter for paint removal and other smoothing operations.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,718,468 to Cowman, which discloses a router guide comprising a base plate, for securing to the underside of the router, and a guide coupled to the base plate.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,013,196 to Friegang, which discloses a scribing accessory for an offset router, for trimming a counter top.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,048,580 to Smith, which discloses an attachable workpiece guide for a portable power router, and a planar router base.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,445,198 to McCurry; which discloses a router sub-base with edge-guide.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,452,721 to Engler, III, et al., which discloses a router base-plate for accomplishing a variety of woodworking tasks.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,685,675 to Beekman, which discloses an offset router guide assembly for guiding the movement of a router around an outer edge.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,068,036 to Cassidy, which discloses a large panel surface planer.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,145,556 to Wood, which discloses a router guide comprising a base plate for cutting groove of varying widths.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,148,880 to Dehde et. al., which discloses a planer-type face milling machine, with disk-shaped cutting head running parallel to the workpiece surface.
While the inventions disclosed in these related patents fulfill their respective objectives, these prior patents do not describe or suggest an apparatus or method for working a wooden surface to remove a projecting wooden plug, or any other irregularity using a router, nor does anything in related art describe or suggest an apparatus or method which allows a user to form a custom threshold or door jam, or other similar custom piece using only a simple, commonly found, powered hand tool, such as a router. Nothing in the prior art describes or suggests using any powered hand tool to smooth a surface of irregularities using the existing flat surface as a guide, or remove material using such surface as a guide to produce a custom piece which cannot otherwise be formed using a simple powered hand tool. Nothing in the prior art describes or suggest accomplishing any of these tasks using a powered hand tool “free hand,” i.e., without a guide other than the surface upon which the hand tool sits.
The present invention overcomes the drawbacks of prior inventions. A router is used for its small size and versatility. The router is “offset,” so that a user may see the workpiece, and wood shavings are easily removed. The offset router (versus the conventional router) also has the distinct advantage of cutting outside the area occupied by the base when the router is in use, thereby allowing the user to cut away material at the margin of a flat surface, or trim wooden plugs from an otherwise smooth surface, using that same flat surface as a guide. This is accomplished by placing the cutting bit in “front” of the router (in front of the router sub-base, really), in the best position to see the work, and the only position from which a user may flush cut to the same surface upon which the router is sitting. By utilizing these features, and other features set forth below, one can, with the offset router base addition, or “sub-base,” of the present invention, conveniently trim irregularities on the surface of a wooden workpiece and, with the same sub-base, remove material from a wooden workpiece to create a non-standard threshold, or other custom piece.